Friday short fiction #7: two memorable flash fictions and a perfect drabble

Usman Ali  The Dark Side  2011
Stuart Carter, 'Tell Stephen Baxter Not To Worry'  (FOCUS #40, NOVEMBER 2001)
Still makes me go Wow every time I read it. I also published this in Zoo Nation #7 and IMHO it can't be improved upon.

H.P. Lovecraft, 'What the Moon Brings'  (THE NATIONAL AMATEUR, MAY 1923)
Another vivid story based on one of Lovecraft's dreams, and far shorter than most of his output.

Bruce Holland Rogers, 'Reconstruction Work'  (FLASH FICTION ONLINE, DECEMBER 2007)
This won the inaugural Micro Award for flash fiction in 2008, probably because it covers a lot of ground in such a short space and yet also neatly extends beyond its tightly composed boundaries, if you get my meaning.

Favourite short story of the week: Fredric Brown, 'The Weapon'  (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, APRIL 1951)
This has a memorable knockout resolution, and deserves to be much better known than it is. Scroll a little way down the comment thread to read the whole story.

Fossil Poetry

Getting to the root of 'OK'. I was also aware of the connection with Martin Van Buren, 'Old Kinderhook', and the article dovetails this with OK's probable origin in Boston. In written form I've definitely developed a strong preference for the elegant "okay" as opposed to the awkward-looking "OK", which in comparison just looks clumsy in the middle of a sentence.